R Pipelining functions

Question

Is there a way to write pipelined functions in R where the result of one function passes immediately into the next? I'm coming from F# and really appreciated this ability but have not found how to do it in R. It should be simple but I can't find how. In F# it would look something like this:

let complexFunction x =
     x |> square 
     |> add 5 
     |> toString

In this case the input would be squared, then have 5 added to it and then converted to a string. I'm wanting to be able to do something similar in R but don't know how. I've searched for how to do something like this but have not come across anything. I'm wanting this for importing data because I typically have to import it and then filter. Right now I do this in multiple steps and would really like to be able to do something the way you would in F# with pipelines.

Answer 1

Here is a functional programming approach using Reduce. It is in fact an example from ?Reduce

square <- function(x) x^2
add_5 <- function(x)  x+5
x <- 1:5
## Iterative function application:
Funcall <- function(f, ...) f(...)

Reduce(Funcall, list(as.character, add_5, square,x), right = TRUE)
## [1] "6"  "9"  "14" "21" "30"

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Or even more simply using the functional package and Compose

This is nice as it will create the function for you

library(functional)
do_stuff <-   Compose(square,add_5,as.character )
do_stuff(1:5)
##  [1] "6"  "9"  "14" "21" "30"

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I note that I would not consider either of these approaches idiomatically R ish (if that is even a phrase)